Date

Related articles

Who?

Jackie Stewart

What?

Matra-Cosworth MS10

Where?

Nürburgring

When?

1968 German GP

Why?

John Young Stewart assuming Rosemeyer's mantle of Nebelmeister, thrashing the opposition by over 4 minutes in torrential conditions. The fight of man and machine against the acts of a God in a particularly foul mood have never been portrayed better than by the epic races through the vulcanic hills of this formerly underdeveloped region. From Schwedenkreuz to Bergwerk, from the Karussel to Pflanzgarten - hell on earth for Grand Prix drivers did exist and it was situated in Western Germany. The classic circuit in between the villages of Adenau and Nürburg had it all - and still has. Today, as a museum track hosting only the annual 24hr Super Production touring car race, it's still a killer, with the Nordschleife - now open to every paying dare-devil - closing only once in a while for the emergency helicopter to fly in and recover a crashed maniac biker to the nearby Cologne hospital. Each time the track reopens, the remaining fans are cramming at the gates to have a go themselves, the two-hour wait having made them even hungrier to meet the ultimate challenge. Are you tempted?

It's official; God loves motor racing.
Why else would he have created the Nürburgring? I don't mean the modern
version; that ersatz track built by a nanny state for the entertainment
of the corporate big cheeses. I mean the real one. The huge 14 mile
blast through the Eifel mountains where every single one of the thousands
of tall pines lining the ribbon of tarmac has a tale to tell about the
good and the great from motor racing's past.

The first Nürburgring is perhaps best known as the place where the
titans of pre-war racing built their reputations and where more than
a few contenders down the years have paid the ultimate price. In this
place, where, like some sleeping serpent, the road winds its way through
volcanic peaks and dramatic forests, careers were both made and destroyed.
For more than fifty years a win at the 'Ring was the universal measure
of a driver. Those who mastered the endless parade of corners that made
up the circuit were the best of their age and a victory at the 'Ring
was usually the mark of a true champion.

This then, is their story. A story set against the tale of a circuit
that only God could have built and only a handful ever truly mastered.

Prior to 1927, Germany had no permanent racing circuit despite the
fact its manufacturers were at the forefront of automobile development
and, as a nation, Germany already had a strong tradition of success.
That success actually began in 1903 when Camille Jenatzy won the Gordon
Bennett Trophy in a 90 horsepower Mercedes. As a result of that win
Germany was obliged to host the 1904 Gordon Bennett race and did so
with the full backing of Kaiser Wilhelm II. The success and popularity
of that first event led to the introduction in 1907 of Germany's own
Kaiserpreis race series.

Around the same time the suggestion of a permanent testing facility
for the German manufacturers was first tabled. There was serious discussion
of the idea and a venue in the Eifel mountains was even put forward.
In the end though nothing came of the idea and a few years later people
had other things on their mind as Europe was plunged into war.

At the end of the conflict Germany was in a perilous state and so it
was not until 1921 when the idea re-emerged. To begin with a section
of new Autobahn outside Berlin was used for national races and AVUS,
as it was known staged, the first German Grand Prix in 1926. In 1925
public rounds around Stuttgart were used to create the Solitude circuit
on a temporary basis, although the narrow track was more suitable for
motorcycles. Despite these attempts Germany still did not have a dedicated
and purpose built track to match the likes of Monza, Brooklands or Montlhéry.
Then the Nürburgring was conceived.

The
idea for the track came from a member of the Eifel District Council,
named Dr Otto Creuz. With the support of the motor club ADAC and the
then mayor of Cologne - and future Chancellor of West Germany - Konrad
Adenauer, he convinced the government to invest in the idea. The benefits
of a dedicated test track, along with the need to invest in an economically
depressed region, were obvious and a government grant of 14.1 million
Reichsmarks was approved. Creuz submitted his idea in April 1925 and
within six months, on 27th September that year, the President of the
Rheinland province laid the first foundation stone.

From the very beginning the Nürburgring was an enormous and ambitious
project. It was intended to be used as a single 17.6 mile circuit that
could also be split into two sections. The Südschleife was a short 4.8
mile section designed for testing and for club racing while the Nordschleife
- all 14.2 miles of it - was intended to be showcase of German talent
and engineering supremacy. Both sections shared the same start-finish
apron that boasted a wide range of facilities. Not only was there a
grandstand, capable of seating 2500 people, the designers also included
a hotel and a paddock incorporating 70 lock-up garages. The excellent
pit complex also incorporated the Continental Tower for use by timekeepers
and race officials. Just four years after the circuit was completed,
an electronic scoreboard - the world's first - was added to the already
impressive list of facilities.

In total the Nordschleife incorporated
172 corners - 84 right-handers and 88 left - and between them those
corners included every conceivable combination of radius, camber and
gradient. For its entire length the circuit was 6.7 metres wide apart
from the start-finish apron which was 20 metres wide and thus created
a natural funnel with which to start every race. Almost every twist
in the track was designed to test and challenge the best of the best
and the true impact of the circuit can only be felt by riding it. Down
gradients of one in nine and up one in six hills cars would wind their
way along a tortuous road that encompassed no fewer than four villages,
while high on the hill, overlooking the entire circuit lay the ruins
of Schloss Nürburg, a twelfth-century fortress. In this, its original
state, the 'Ring was not a race circuit; it was the setting for an automotive
opera that could only have been written by Richard Wagner.

Back in 1926 while more than 2500 labourers were sweating the track
into reality a young German driver - Rudolf Caracciola - rocketed into
the public eye after winning a rain-soaked first German Grand Prix at
AVUS. Within 18 months of that event the Nürburgring was finally ready
to host its first event - the Eroffnung-Feier.

The
first race took place on 19th June 1927 and Caracciola set his 'Ring
record rolling with a win. A month later the circuit hosted the German
Grand Prix which was won by Otto Merz when Caracciola's car broke down.
Merz, who had the reputation of being something of a hard man, was a
former chauffeur to Archduke Ferdinand of Austria and had been present
at the 1914 Sarajevo assassination that would go on to trigger World
War One.

In 1928 Caracciola took his revenge and the chequered flag with a fine
victory on board a Mercedes-Benz SS. 1929, the last time the full 17.1
mile circuit was used, also saw the first non-German victory when Louis
Chiron took his nimble little Bugatti into the winner's enclosure. The
1930 German Grand Prix was cancelled due to the terrible state of the
nations economy and a similar fate befell the 1933 race.

In 1931 Caracciola scored a magnificent wet weather victory on board
his 7.1 litre SSKL, helped in no small way by Alfred Neubauer's perfectly
executed pit-drills. 1932 saw a third win for Rudolf, although this
time it was at the wheel of an Alfa Romeo P3.

From 1934 until the coming of the war the Nazi-sponsored Mercedes and
Auto Unions dominated the Grand Prix series and the Alfa Romeo, Bugatti
and Maserati opposition was simply crushed. In 1934 the race fell to
Hans Stuck and the Auto Union team and the following five years saw
a series of walkovers that warmed even the coldest Nazi heart. When
war finally came the 'Ring had staged a total of eleven Grands Prix
and the final score was Mercedes six, Auto Union four with just one
upset to distress the Nazi propaganda machine. The year was 1935, the
car was a three-year-old Alfa Romeo and the driver was the little Italian
- Tazio Nuvolari.

By 1935 the Mercedes and Auto Union teams were proving that with lighter
alloys for the bodywork they could use bigger, more powerful engines
and yet still remain within the weight limit for the class. As a result
the teams arrived with their shiny new machinery. Four Mercedes W25s
were produced for Caracciola, Luigi Fagioli, Manfred
von Brauchitsch and the new boy Hermann Lang. Ranged against them
were the 4.9 litre V12 Auto Unions driven by Bernd Rosemeyer, Hans Stuck,
Achille Varzi and Paul Pietsch. In the middle, among a rag-tag mixture
of Maserati, ERA and Bugatti privateers, sat the Scuderia Ferrari entered
Alfa Romeo P3 of Nuvolari. Tazio's car was little more than an old machine
with the engine bored out to 3.2 litres. On a typically overcast German
day the race began as expected with the Nazi-sponsored manufacturers
fighting among themselves for the important positions. For the first
9 of the 22 laps Nuvolari simply avoided trouble and settled into his
stride. He slowly worked his way into second place and on lap 10 he
passed Caracciola and moved into the lead. At the halfway stage the
leaders began arriving in the pits for fuel and fresh tyres. Aided by
the typically slick German pit-stop routines the aristocratic von Brauchitsch
was away in just 47 seconds. He was soon followed out by a handful of
German cars.

Nuvolari had to sit through a 'typical'
Italian stop of over two minutes before he got back onto the track.
Angry at the delay, his blood was up and he drove like a total maniac.
Over the next few laps he passed Caracciola, Stuck and Fagioli as if
they were nothing more than club racers. A later than usual pit-stop
by Rosemeyer moved the little Italian back into second place once more.
The gap to the race leader - von Brauchitsch - was 1m 27sec with seven
laps still remaining. Nuvolari pressed on and the gap came tumbling.
First it was 1m 17sec, then 1m 3sec until on lap 21 just thirty seconds
separated the two men. Surely not even Tazio could recover such a gap
in only one lap? Then the fates stepped in. Aware of the threat posed
by Nuvolari, Manfred had begun to push ever harder and seven kilometres
to the flag he paid the price for his hard driving. A rear tyre burst
and the little Italian simply sailed by to collect the winner's laurels
in front of a stunned 300,000 strong German audience including Adolf
Hitler.

So confident had they been that a German would win the race the organisers
did not even have a copy of the Italian national anthem to play as Nuvolari
received his winner's laurels. Luckily Tazio always carried a copy as
a lucky charm and the strains of Marcia Reale echoed around the grandstand
much to the annoyance of the assembled Nazi hierarchy. It was a triumph
of the human virtues of skill and courage over the science of speed
and horsepower and is still acknowledged as the finest race of Nuvolari's
long and illustrious career. The first legend of the 'Ring had been
born.

Another man whose history will always connect to the Nürburgring was
Bernd Rosemeyer. Bernd started his motor-racing career on motorcycles
and was something of a daredevil. He first hit the headlines in only
his second race for the Auto Union team, when during the 1935 Eifelrennen
he battled with Caracciola for much of the race. For the 1936 Eifelrennen
he came with a car capable of producing 520 bhp and a victory on his
mind. During this period grid positions were determined by lot and Rosemeyer
began the race from the third row. Almost immediately he was running
third behind Caracciola and Nuvolari as a gentle rain began to fall.
When Nuvolari made his move on his old adversary Bernd simply followed
him and then managed to work his way into the lead. The rain then turned
to mist, which in turn coalesced into fog. Everybody slowed down. Everybody
except Rosemeyer. Having raced the circuit on numerous occasions during
his motorcycling days he knew the place intimately. As a result he began
to gain more than 30 seconds a lap and by the end of the race he finished
a full two minutes ahead of Nuvolari and six minutes ahead of the lead
Mercedes. Incredibly his 72.8mph average was identical to Caracciola's
time from the previous year - in a race run in perfect weather. As befitting
such a plain-speaking race the Germans called him the Nebelmeister -
master of the fog.

Rosemeyer added another win in the 1935 Grand Prix a month later and
yet another in the 1937 Eifelrennen. In 1936 he set a new lap record
and became the first man to lap the circuit in less than 10 minutes.
He missed out on a fourth successive victory in the 1937
Grand Prix when tyre problems relegated him to fourth place. That
race was eventually won by Caracciola, although Rosemeyer did register
a lap record of 85.62 mph - a record that would stand for 19 years.

The intense Nazi propaganda surrounding the dominance of their teams
meant that the 1938 Grand Prix was watched by a crowd of more than 350,000
people. However national pride took another kick in the teeth when -
following a pit fire for von Brauchitsch - the race was won by Richard
Seaman. That made Seaman the first Briton to win a Grand Prix since
Henry Seagrave's victory at Tours in 1923. Before the shadow of war
fell across Europe for a second time two more races were staged at the
'Ring and both fell to Mercedes. The Eifelrennen went to Hermann Lang,
the European Champion. The final Grand Prix was another wet race and
victory once again fell to Rudi Caracciola. It was his last win in an
international competition and with it the curtain fell on the first
act of the Nürburgring drama.

Perhaps inevitably, the circuit spent the war in military hands but
when peace finally returned in 1945 it was handed back to local control.
In 1948, after some reconstruction work, the track was once more pressed
into service for national races. Initially the occupying forces prevented
Germany from competing in international events and so it was not until
1950 that the circuit was used for a Grand Prix race. When the circus
finally came back to town the Ferrari pilot Alberto Ascari took over
the mantle of Ringmeister with three straight wins (two of them during
the Formula 2 years). Giuseppe Farina - the first world champion - made
it four in a row for Ferrari in 1953. With the arrival of the 2.5 litre
formula Mercedes returned to the world stage. To drive their impressive
machinery Mercedes called upon pre-war star Hermann Lang, fellow Germans
Karl Kling and Hans Hermann. Alongside them was Juan Manuel Fangio who
emerged as the victor in the 1954 Grand Prix. Tragically it was during
this race that the 'Ring claimed its first victim of the World Championship
era. Onofre Marimon, Fangio's compatriot and protégé, was killed during
practise while on the downhill run to Wehrseifen.

In 1956 Fangio repeated the win for Ferrari and in doing so finally
broke Rosemeyer's 1937 lap record with an 87.7mph tour. As Nuvolari
is often remembered for his 1935 win so Fangio is forever associated
with his 1957 visit to the 'Ring. This was the great man's final full
season in racing and he was, despite being 47 years-old, at the peak
of his form. He arrived in Germany having already won in Buenos Aires,
Monte Carlo and at Rouen. On board his works Maserati 250F he had set
the pace all season long. As he took to the grid he was surrounded by
the Ferrari team of Mike Hawthorn and Peter Collins and the Vanwalls
of Stirling Moss and Tony Brooks. Every single one of them was championship
material and Fangio would have to deliver the race of his career to
beat them. That is exactly what he did.

One by one he picked off the opposition and by lap three the Argentine
driver was in the lead having knocked a second off the lap record in
the process. On laps five, six, eight and ten he repeated the process
in his efforts to build up a cushion for himself. On lap 12 he came
in for his tyre stop. In a virtual echo of Nuvolari's stop in 1935 the
Maserati team got it all wrong and by the time Fangio returned to the
track he was almost a full minute behind the Ferraris. On lap 14 he
clawed back 12 seconds. Two laps later he reduced the gap by a further
5 seconds. Then, with his tyre bedded in and the car feeling more and
more stable he began a sequence of laps that would leave the record
books shattered and his earn him the reputation as the best of the best.
Four laps later he had torn a full 24 seconds off the lap record and
executed the first ever 90mph lap of the 'Ring. It was a stunning display
of car control that saw the record falling ever time the Maserati crossed
the start-finish line. By lap 20, he was just three seconds adrift of
Collins.

He
pressed on once more and caught the Englishman as they left the Nordkurve.
He then nailed Hawthorn and in doing so recovered the lead. He finished
the race 3.6 seconds ahead of Hawthorn and said afterwards 'I did
things I've never done before, and I don't ever want to drive like that
again.'

True to his word he never did and that win was the final Grand Prix
victory for the great man; who certainly earned his place alongside
Caracciola, Nuvolari and Rosemeyer as a true 'Ringmeister'.

When the circus returned to the 'Ring a year later the players had
changed a little but this time so had the cars. The British threat to
the dominance of what Tony Vandervell called 'those damned red cars'
was growing with every race. The Ferrari line-up was still headed by
Collins and Hawthorn and they must have experienced déjà vu as they
saw Moss storm into the lead from the start. It must have felt even
worse as they saw him break Fangio's stunning lap record. Sadly for
Moss the fates had decreed that this was not to be his day and he was
soon coasting into retirement. That left the honour of the Vanwall team
riding on a young dentist from rural England.

Tony Brooks drove the race of his career and soon overhauled the red
cars to take the lead. Collins and Hawthorn set off in pursuit but sadly
it was destined to end in tragedy. Collins, striving to stay in touch
with Brooks lost it on the fast right-hander at Pflanzgarten. He was
to die from his injuries. Unable to maintain the pace of the Vanwall
Hawthorn, who had witnessed the crash of his closest friend, blew a
clutch and was forced to retire. That left Brooks as the first Briton
to win a German Grand Prix since Seaman some twenty years earlier. He
was followed home by two mid-engined Coopers.

Towards the end of the 1950s the rise of the mid-engined car was gathering
pace and the success of Salvadori and Trintignant in this race was a
foretaste of how different the grid would look in 1961 when Grand Prix
racing returned to the Nordschleife. On that day another classic race
would be staged and the status of Ringmeister conferred on another of
motor sports favourite sons - Stirling Moss.

At the beginning of the 1.5 litre era the 'shark-nose' Ferrari 156
was the car to beat. By the time they arrived at the 'Ring for the sixth
race of the season the little red car had only been beaten once - by
Moss at Monaco. The remaining races had been little more than exhibition
matches between the American Phil Hill and champion-elect Wolfgang 'Taffy'
von Trips. During qualifying Hill smashed the pole record by a massive
14 seconds and in doing so proved the value of a lightweight mid-engined
car on a circuit that rewarded handling. The only things standing in
the way of another Ferrari walkover were the Porsche 718s of Bonnier
and Gurney, Brabham's Cooper (now fitted with the new Climax V8) and
an old Lotus 18 with Stirling Moss on board.

Stirling had never won a Grand Epreuve event at the 'Ring but he had
proved his credentials with the 1958 Vanwall and with four wins in the
1000km sportscar races for Maserati and Aston Martin, the latter while
en route to claiming the 1959 Sportscar World Championship. As in 1958
he was to start the race from the front row. What his opposition didn't
know was that Stirling had opted for rain tyres. A heavy shower just
before the start convinced Stirling - against the advice of Dunlop -
to use these tyres. In order to confuse the competition he had covered
over the tell-tale green dots and in doing so set the stage for a game
of cat and mouse to rival any cartoon creation.

Brabham
made the better start but within a mile he had skidded off handing the
lead to Stirling. Despite being some 30bhp down on the Ferrari competition,
Moss set off into the distance and by lap five he was 15 seconds ahead
of his closest rival. Spurred on by his home crowd von Trips set a new
sub-9 minute record as the road began to dry and brought the gap down
to just 7 seconds. Moss stabilised the gap and in the final third of
the race managed to pull away once more. Aided by rain in the final
laps he finished a full 21 seconds ahead of the competition and once
again Enzo Ferrari was denied his victory at the 'Ring. The win was
the last of Stirling's career although, like his mentor Fangio, he had
marked his passage in style.

Four more 1.5 litre races were held at the 'Ring and every one of them
was won by a Briton - Graham Hill, John Surtees and Jim Clark. Hill's
win in 1962 was watched by a crowd of 360,000 as torrential rain resulted
in the slowest race since 1950. Surtees won in '63 and '64 and also
scored two sportscar wins here for Ferrari, thus confirming his mastery
of the 'Ring. In 1965 Clark, the greatest
driver of his era, finally won with typical style. In doing so he produced
the first ever 100mph lap of the track, both in qualifying and during
the race.

1966
saw a change in formula with the arrival of the 3-litre engines. As
much as Ferrari had been ready in 1961 for the switch to 1.5 litres,
this time it was the turn of the Brabham team. Black
Jack scored a win in 1966 while team-mate Denny
Hulme bagged a victory en-route to his world championship in 1967.
Over the next few years the races were dominated by drivers with girls'
names; Jackie and Jacky. In 1968 the race was staged in the worse possible
weather, but all the rain, wind and fog the Eifel Mountains could muster
did not stop Jackie Stewart from scoring his first win at the place
he called 'The Green Hell'. Speeds may have been reduced to pre-1937
levels but Jackie came home four minutes clear of his nearest rival
and earned the right to stand proud among the Ringmeisters.

1969 saw Jacky
Ickx became the first man to lap the circuit in under 8 minutes,
at an average speed of 110.1mph, although for many his best performance
here came in 1967 while competing in the F2 class of that year's German
Grand Prix. At the tender age of 22 and on board a 1.6 litre Matra MS5,
he practised faster than all except Clark and Hulme and was 21 seconds
ahead of the nearest F2 car. Sadly the F2 grid had to line up behind
all the F1 entrants but within five laps Jacky was running fifth, having
passed 12 full-blown F1 cars on the way. His race ended with suspension
failure but his card was marked as a future Ringmeister.

Those early 3-litre races confirmed what had long been feared; the
'Ring was becoming just too dangerous. Like the other great circuits
of Reims, Monza and Spa the track had remained unchanged, but the spiralling
speeds and a new awareness of the need for greater driver safety meant
that the 'Ring would either have to change or die. Grands Prix were
becoming more like air shows and organisers knew that they needed more
than hedges and chicken-wire fences to stop errant cars from becoming
permanent parts of the scenery.

For 1970 the German Grand Prix took up temporary residence at Hockenheim
as the 'Ring underwent serious modification. Several corners were re-profiled,
bumps were evened out and miles of Armco barriers were used to line
the roads. Phil Hill, who had raced the 'old' 'Ring claimed that the
place had been emasculated. In some way he was right but of course he
was unable to see into the future and witness the sterility that would
be visited on Grand Prix circuits during the 1970s and '80s when the
likes of Zolder, Fuji and Las Vegas were added to the schedule.

After
a year at Hockenheim the premier German event returned to its true home
for 1971 and the Jacky/Jackie dominance continued. Stewart led Tyrrell
one-twos in 1971 and 1973, while Ickx scored a fine win for Ferrari
in 1972. In 1974 Ferrari won once more with Clay Regazzoni the pilot
while 1975 saw Carlos Reutemann wearing the winner's garland for Brabham.
1975 was also the year that saw the first ever lap in under 7 minutes,
when Niki Lauda got round in 6m 58.6s during practise. Then came 1976
and the final death knell for the Nürburgring.

The story of the 1976 season would not be out of place in a third-rate
novel and is of course too well known to justify re-telling here. Suffice
to say that by lap two Lauda had slammed into the cliff face just before
Bergwerk. The fire almost cost the Austrian his life but he was destined
to return to the cockpit and win two more championship before finally
hanging up his helmet. Sadly that fate was not to be shared by the 'Ring.
The early 1970s had seen more and more drivers calling for greater safety
at the circuit. Lauda's accident proved their worst fears were well-founded
and the 'Ring was consigned to the history of Grand Prix racing.

The truth of the matter is that in terms of safety the circuit had
a better record than most although it did have its share of fatalities.
In Grands Prix meetings alone Viktor Junek (1928), Ernst von Delius
(1937), Onofre Marimon (1954), Peter Collins (1958), Carel Godin de
Beaufort (1964), John Taylor (1966) and Gerhard Mitter (1969) all lost
their lives here.

Despite the loss of the Grand Prix, which moved to the unimaginative
Hockenheim, the 'Ring soldiered on for a few more years hosting sportscar
and touring car events. Eventually a decision was made to build a new
'Ring. What followed was an act of vandalism that may be soon be repeated
at Monza. The old pit complex and grandstand were flattened. Fortunately
the old Nordschleife was left intact and thus remains as a monument
to the great events it once staged.

The first ever event held on the new track brought out a whole host
of vintage Grand Prix machinery. Auto Unions and Mercedes were re-united
with the likes of Lang and Fangio for a run round the new circuit. Only
one competitive race was staged - it was for Mercedes 190 saloons and
was won by a young Brazilian named Ayrton Senna.

During its heyday the 'Ring never claimed to be the fastest circuit,
that was the domain of Monza. It was also never the most glamorous setting
for motor racing, with that honour belonging to Monaco. It probably
does not even have a reputation as a spiritual home of racing which
surely belongs to Montlhéry or Brooklands. In fact, many of the drivers
hated the circuit. Stewart called it the 'Green Hell' and once said
'I was always relieved when it was time to leave. The only time you
felt good thinking about the 'Ring was when you were a long way away,
curled up at home in front of a warm fire on a winter night. I never
did one more balls-out lap there than I absolutely had to. Any driver
who says he loved the 'Ring was either lying, or not driving quickly
enough'.

In all of the Grosser Preis events from 1927 to 1976 there were only
two races in which a World Champion, or the pre-war equivalent European
Champion, did not finish in the top three. In fact in four races, champions
filled all three steps of the podium, thus confirming the 'Ring's pedigree
as the ultimate test of true ability.

In reality the Nürburgring is actually little more than a piece of
tarmac in an attractive setting. What made it special is the drivers
who tackled, and mastered, the intricacies of a circuit designed to
test their mettle. Astonishing feats of bravery, often tinged with both
madness and sadness make the 'Ring a hallowed place in a way that no
modern circuit could ever be. It was a venue that set apart the greatest
from the great, while making true heroes from everyday champions.